


okay, we could do this the sensible way

by bemire



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemire/pseuds/bemire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And for those couple of days, where she and him are caught in tandem, mid-twirl in their sorry waltz, captured in decay, she's everything he's ever wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	okay, we could do this the sensible way

**Author's Note:**

> title from the Spector song, Decade of Decay.

Grantaire doesn't know what it is; what it should be (what it shouldn't be); where it went or how it happened.

He knows that the twist in Enjolras' smirk finally started stinging, like it used to when he beat up grown men in alleys (before something happened and he became so _contained_ (passive)) - or maybe his ignorance finally started receding. He knows the sun still shines and the rain still pours and the blood still runs and his heart stops breaking, but only to freeze like that - splintered, captured in decay.

Nothing's changed, so it's fitting, really.

He knows Éponine, and maybe she knows how it happened, but the story'd probably be the same (the sun soaring, the birds singing, a fleeting smile _fleeting_ , another girl with pitying eyes and a life-affirming smile, dancing fingers and falling falling fa _lling_ ).

He doesn't like to compare them, consciously (Éponine and himself; Éponine and Enjolras; Enjolras and Marius, making his stomach churn), but he knows, of course he does, Éponine's everything Enjolras isn't and more.

And for those couple of days, where she and him are caught in tandem, mid-twirl in their sorry waltz, captured in decay, she's everything he's ever wanted -

(but then the dance finishes and the lights go out and he throws up bile and acid and his heart for the last time as a girl he probably never knew starts dying/living on the pavement like there's time to spare).

He can't handle it. How does he explain it? If he'd ever had the chance to paint Enjolras, he would've used primary colours, probably falling to cliche and using red in excess; colours thats scream _FUCK YOU AND YOUR MOTHER_. If he'd painted Éponine though -

she'd be murky greens and the dark, dark sky peeking out behind from behind muddy fingers. She'd be swathes of brown and navy, the punchline of a joke caught in her hair, the truth snagged in her teeth, the end of the world trapped in the quirk of her eyebrow.

Enjolras was really just the catalyst for decay. A man with too many words to not kick and scream against it all, and maybe he accidentally kicked him over the edge, staggering back into a policeman (out of sight, out of mind).

It was probably predestined, though. It always is.


End file.
